Surgical fastening devices are used in conventional surgical procedures to perform various critical functions. The functions may include soft tissue approximation, bone approximation, fixation or repair of organs, and the fixation of medical devices such as meshes to tissue. The various types of conventional fixation devices that are used in such surgical procedures include sutures, staples, screws, and tacks. Tacks have several advantages that provide particular utility in surgical procedures. The advantages include ease and rapidity of implantation, the ability to be readily implanted in minimally invasive procedures, holding force, etc. Surgical tacks are especially useful in hernia repair procedures, where it is necessary to secure a hernia repair mesh to the peritoneum or other body tissue to effect repair of a hernia defect. The tacks may have several configurations, however a particularly useful configuration is a strap-type tack having two legs with distal piercing members, where the legs are connected by a proximal strap member. Other variations include tacks having a head and a distally extending piercing member. The tacks are typically dispensed by a tack applier instrument loaded with a plurality of tacks that are fired or dispensed by the surgeon about the periphery of the hernia repair mesh. Typically, conventional surgical tacks cannot be dispensed without a tack applier instrument. In addition, the surgeon may have a need for only one or two tacks to fasten a mesh to tissue, but typically conventional tack applier instruments are loaded with a plurality of tacks. Since the tack appliers and tacks cannot be re-sterilized when using absorbable tacks, the unused tacks are wasted.
Although the surgical tacks and tack applier instruments known in the art are adequate for their intended purpose and use, there is a constant need in this art for improved surgical tacks. In particular, singulated tacks that can readily be applied by the surgeon without a tack applier instrument that may be useful adjuncts in tissue repair procedures.